Hello friends! I am so excited to tell you that work has begun at our house and our kitchen remodel is finally under way! I say finally, because we’ve been working on getting this project into motion almost from day 1 in this house, but truthfully, I know how lucky we are that we are able to have the kitchen of our dreams just 6 months into living here. As I write this post, it’s only day 2, but I was excited to share what has been going on over here with you. This morning, before the workers arrived for the day, I took a moment to snap some photos and share with you the first day of kitchen progress: demo day! While demo day isn’t exciting for some, for me, it’s an opportunity to peek into the history of a home, and it’s a time to really see the possibility in a space. Shall we have a peek?
As you can see above, looking in from our black and white entry, the kitchen has been pretty much gutted!!!! The previous owners had put plywood right over the old linoleum floor, and then laid vinyl tile over that. They had ended it with no transition to the dining room so it just sat there a little higher than the wood floors in the dining room. I’ve done some not so great DIY jobs in my life (haven’t we all?) but this one was pretty awful. After removing that layer of plywood, old avocado green and mustard linoleum was discovered below. I am not going to lie, if this had been actual tile, I think it would have been really cool.
I am sure it was once paired with either mustard or avocado green appliances as well and in its day was probably glorious.
The cabinetry has all been removed and is currently piled in our dining room. My contractor said he might be able to reuse it, so I told him it was all his! That window is where our new brass apron sink will go, and our cafe dishwasher will sit just to the right of the sink. This is a major reason in why I chose the appliances I did… I wanted that brass sink to stand out and not fight other finishes, and the matte white of the cafe dishwasher is going to complement it perfectly.
On the other wall of the L portion of our kitchen, the white cafe refrigerator will be all the way to the left, and the hood and the range will be where you can see the gas line and the space where the microwave had been almost centered on that wall. At first I thought I wanted a boxy modern wooden hood painted white, but I actually really love the simplistic minimalistic design of the cafe hood. I am going to get into more details about the layout later, but for now just sharing so you can somewhat visualize. The dogs are very confused as to what is going on. 😉
Opposite of this wall is the wall that will be opened up to the dining room, creating one long space. As you can see, there isn’t too much of a wall here to remove. If you look below you can also see where I had Wilder’s birthday vinyl on the wall and then just covered it with art because that’s how lazy I am sometimes.
Removing that wall will create one long wall that stands alone. You can see a portion of it below, but it extends to the left into the dining room. This wall will hold our pantry, microwave, and our trash cabinet. By the way, can I tell you how excited I am about our Cabinets to Go pantry and trash cabinet that comes with two bins, one for trash and one for recycling?!?! In all of our years of home ownership, we have never had a nice pantry, and we have never had a cabinet just for our trash and recycling…. it’s a small thing, but something that makes me ridiculously happy!
As you can see, as of this morning, the vinyl tile was still in the entry. In that space it was placed over the original pergo flooring, which was in terrible shape. We had wanted to preserve it if possible, but it was just beyond repair. By the time that I am not writing this, the vinyl tile and pergo is all gone, and they are currently starting to remove the wall between the kitchen and the dining room.
This morning on instagram I received a message that said something along the lines of “Way to hustle!” While I wish we could have DIYed this portion, with 3 kids home for summer (one being just a year old), 2 dogs, a husband who works full time, there was just no way. We also don’t have the experience to deal with gas lines and complete renovations, but when all of the work is finally complete, I will be ready with my paint brushes….
With everything currently torn up, we’ve created some spaces we can use for dining, meal prep, etc… I will be sharing with you how we survive without a kitchen soon, assuming we survive. 😉
